Shanghai leads China's integrated circuit development

Shanghai has become the most competitive city for integrated circuit industry development in China, Yicai reported on Wednesday.

Wuxi in East China's Jiangsu province grabbed second place, followed by Hefei in East China's Anhui province, East China's Jiangsu province's Nanjing and Suzhou.

Shenzhen and Beijing took sixth and seventh places, followed by Chengdu in Southwest China's Sichuan province, Xi'an in Northwest China's Shaanxi province and Wuhan in Central China's Hubei province.

Shanghai considers the integrated circuit industry one of its three major industries, covering design, manufacturing, package testing and materials.

The scale of Shanghai's IC industry exceeded 170 billion yuan ($24.44 billion) in 2019, among which 71.5 billion yuan was in design, 38.9 billion yuan in manufacturing, 38.2 billion yuan in package testing and 21.8 billion yuan in materials, according to data from the Shanghai Integrated Circuit Industry Association.

Shanghai also boasts many leading companies in the industry, including Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation and Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment (Group) Co Ltd.

Despite challenges in diversified fields from January to May this year, Shanghai's integrated circuit industry continued to grow against the downward trend, with sales revenue increasing 38.7 percent.

Beijing, with its comprehensive strength in scientific research, planned to establish an IC technological innovation base with international influence by 2020.

Shenzhen planned to build an integrated circuit industrial cluster with international competitiveness by 2023, with industrial scale reaching 200 billion yuan.

Sales of China's integrated circuit industry reached 756.23 billion yuan in 2019, up 15.8 percent year-on-year, although the global semiconductor market declined 12.1 percent year-on-year last year.